Office of Mental Health

Pilgrim Psychiatric Center: Elevator Maintenance Services

We examined payments Pilgrim Psychiatric Center (Pilgrim) made to Centennial Elevator Industries, Inc. (Centennial) for elevator maintenance services provided under contract C000189 for the period September 1, 2010 through February 28, 2011. We found that the fixed monthly fees Pilgrim paid Centennial were consistent with the contract terms. However, we found that Centennial did not provide all services required under the preventive maintenance schedule of the contract. Of the $140,000 in invoices we examined, we estimate Pilgrim paid Centennial $23,000 for work that was not performed and $3,900 for services not supported by work tickets. We also found that Centennial did not pay its technicians the appropriate hourly prevailing wage and could not provide support to show they paid the technicians’ supplemental benefits. Based on the nature of our findings, it is likely Centennial has been providing less maintenance service than required by the contract and underpaying its employees since the beginning of the contract in November 2007.

We have referred Centennial’s non-payment of appropriate prevailing wage rates to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Public Work for its determination of possible action.